Location of Hard-Drives

Thanks for such a quick reply

I take it the new type of Boot-Load thingy is a .BCD file? It doesn't want to seem to accept my current boot.ini...

Thanks for all your help once again,
George Kirke

But the Windows 7 new boot manager is something you can dig into on the web. BUT here's the big issue and I'm guessing here. If you are like a lot of folk you took your XP drive and want to boot from that on your new 7 machine. There is no supported method for this today. YES you can research EasyBCD and how it cam make the new boot manager EASY for you to manipulate but until we see the full story I bet you are trying what many others have.

Let's hear more.
Bob

Hah, no, I'm not nearly that adventurous.

No new computer, I've just got a new Hard-Drive... and a copy of Windows 7. The plan is to continue using this OS as a backup, and use Windows 7 as the main OS.

Thanks,
George Kirke

Maybe I could install Windows 7 onto the disc, and run the ECB2.02 from there, and refernce the XP installation.
You haven't got any ideas as to making the Windows 7 the 'C:' drive have you, or is it set like that during install? I don't want to make things complicated by having two C drives in the same computer

7 won't boot from an old XP style boot manager.
XP won't boot if you move it to another connection even if you use EasyBCD.

Why not go with a supported dual boot system?
Bob

Hi,
Sorry I didn't comment before, I got destracted...

How about this for a work-around?

Use the technique described on this website (method 2):
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

Thanks,
George Kirke

Scratch that

when I meant 'Method 2' I didn't mean Method 2, I meant the second method of part one?

'To Use a Separate Hard Disk Drive than the XP Drive' it's called

Thanks
George Kirke

I read that and see no option to use an existing XP install. All I read is how to dual boot or create a 7+XP dual boot from scratch with either 7 installed first or XP installed first. Your post leads me to believe you have some working XP hard drive and are attempting to get it to boot.

Bob

Sorry if I didn't make it clear, or didn't mention it at all

I'm trying to keep the install for windows XP on one drive - that's the OS I'm using to type this - and install windows 7 on the new drive.

Thanks,
George Kirke

especially since Bob is attending, but if XP is already installed and up and running, why not try that "Method 1" in the link you gave?
"When XP is Installed First".

When you install Windows 7 onto an existing system, either onto a 2nd partition or a new hard drive, Windows 7 setup will overwrite the XP boot.ini on the primary disk and replace it with it's own boot file.

Or maybe Bob will show why that won't work in this case.

Mark

And I've never had to work hard for that to work.

To recap. If we have some XP working and we want to add a second drive and run 7 there, that's the normal dual boot and no magic, no EasyBCD is required. Just answer the questions as you install 7.

BEWARE that some want to move to their installed Windows 7 later and remove the XP drive and then folk discover that is not supported. Haven't found anyone to fix that one yet.
Bob

I made a muck-up in that post... I put 'Method 2' when I actually wanted to reference Method 2 ~ second option; if that made sense

It's titled:
2. To Use a Separate Hard Disk Drive than the XP Drive

Thanks,
George

ps. Is it possible to install it on an extended parition?

And why are we working so hard here?

When I want to dual boot XP and 7 and XP is installed first I didn't have to do much more than boot the 7 DVD and carefully answer the questions.

I never had to read about method 2. Never had to think over partition types and in the end it worked.

--> We've covered too much ground here when it looks like there is no need as this is now looking like your run of the mill easy install.
Bob